365days365films

Basic Info / 基本情報

Synopsis / あらすじ

[English / 英語] A single rifle. Sold by a Japanese hunter to a Moroccan goat farmer, it is given to two young sons to protect their flock from jackals. One afternoon, testing the rifle’s range with the reckless curiosity of youth, one of the boys fires at a distant tour bus. The bullet strikes Susan Jones (Cate Blanchett), an American woman traveling with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt). This single shot triggers a chain of events radiating across four countries and three continents.

In Morocco, Richard desperately fights to save Susan as the U.S. government, assuming an act of terrorism, pressures local police to hunt down the shooter. In San Diego, the couple’s Mexican nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), unable to find a sitter during the crisis, takes their children across the border to her son’s wedding—a decision that will cost her everything. Meanwhile in Tokyo, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), the deaf-mute daughter of the rifle’s original owner, wanders through a city of neon and noise, struggling to express the silent grief of her mother’s recent suicide. Taking its title from the Biblical Tower of Babel, the film explores the walls built by fear, language, and misunderstanding.

[Japanese / 日本語] きっかけは、一丁のライフルでした。日本のハンターからモロッコのヤギ飼いへと渡ったその銃は、ジャッカルから群れを守るために二人の息子に託されます。ある日、少年たちは子供ゆえの無邪気な好奇心から、遠くの道路を走る観光バスに向けて引き金を引きました。放たれた一発の弾丸は、夫のリチャード（ブラッド・ピット）と共に旅行中だったアメリカ人女性、スーザン（ケイト・ブランシェット）を射抜きます。この出来事は、4つの国と3つの大陸を跨ぐ、あまりにも過酷な連鎖の始まりでした。

モロッコでは、リチャードが必死に妻の命を救おうとする一方で、米政府はこれをテロと断定し、地元警察に犯人捜査の圧力を強めます。サンディエゴでは、雇い主の危機を知りつつも子供の預け先が見つからない乳母アメリア（アドリアナ・バラサ）が、やむなく子供たちを連れて国境を越え、メキシコでの息子の結婚式へと向かいます。それが、すべてを失う決断になるとも知らずに。そして東京。ライフルの元の持ち主である男の娘、聾唖の女子高生チエコ（菊地凛子）は、喧騒と断絶に満ちた街で、母を自死で亡くしたやり場のない孤独を抱えて彷徨っていました。

聖書の「バベルの塔」に由来するタイトルが示す通り、この映画は言語や文化、そして恐怖が作り出した「心の壁」を描き出します。

Cast & Crew / スタッフ・出演

Additional Information / 追加情報

Awards / 受賞歴

• 79th Academy Awards (2007) – 7 nominations, 1 win:
  • Best Original Score – WON (Gustavo Santaolalla)
  • Best Picture – nomination
  • Best Director – nomination (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
  • Best Supporting Actress – nomination (Adriana Barraza)
  • Best Supporting Actress – nomination (Rinko Kikuchi)
  • Best Original Screenplay – nomination (Guillermo Arriaga)
  • Best Film Editing – nomination
• 64th Golden Globe Awards (2007) – 4 nominations, 1 win:
  • Best Motion Picture – Drama – WON
  • Best Director – nomination (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
  • Best Supporting Actress – nomination (Adriana Barraza)
  • Best Supporting Actress – nomination (Rinko Kikuchi)
• 59th Cannes Film Festival (2006) – 1 win:
  • Best Director – WON (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
• 60th BAFTA Awards (2007) – 6 nominations, 1 win:
  • Best Supporting Actress – WON (Rinko Kikuchi)
  • Best Film – nomination
  • Best Direction – nomination
  • Best Supporting Actress – nomination (Adriana Barraza)
  • Best Original Screenplay – nomination
  • Best Editing – nomination
• Screen Actors Guild Awards (2007) – 2 nominations:
  • Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture – nomination
  • Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – nomination (Rinko Kikuchi)

Critical Reception / 批評的評価

• Rotten Tomatoes: 69% (Critics), 75% (Audience)
• Metacritic: 68/100 (Generally Favorable Reviews)
• IMDb: 7.5/10
• Eiga.com（映画.com）: 3.8/5
• The third and final film in Iñárritu and Arriaga’s “Death Trilogy” following Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003) — the most formally ambitious of the three
• Rinko Kikuchi’s performance as Chieko called a revelation — physically fearless, emotionally unguarded, conveying an interior world of grief and longing with no dialogue to lean on; her dual Oscar and BAFTA nominations marked the first Japanese actress to receive an Academy Award nomination in over fifty years
• Adriana Barraza praised for the devastating specificity of Amelia’s situation — a woman destroyed not by malice but by a system that does not see her
• Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography — different visual registers for each country, each story — cited as one of the most sophisticated multi-strand visual strategies in contemporary cinema
• Gustavo Santaolalla’s score, built on minimal strings and ambient texture, called one of his finest works — a score that doesn’t explain the film’s emotions but holds space for them
• Roger Ebert.com: ★★★★ “A film of breathtaking ambition — Iñárritu forces us to confront how we construct the other”
• The New York Times: “Devastating and necessary — a film about the price of misunderstanding”
• Variety: “Iñárritu’s most fully realized vision — a global mosaic of human disconnection”
• The Guardian: ★★★★ “A film that implicates its audience in every misunderstanding it depicts”
• The most consistent criticism: the film’s construction can feel schematic — the hyperlink narrative risks turning human suffering into formal demonstration
• Defenders argued the schematism is the point: that the structures connecting these four stories are themselves an argument about how systems — political, bureaucratic, racial — operate above and around individual human experience
• The Moroccan storyline praised by Arab and Muslim critics for its refusal of the post-9/11 “Arab as terrorist” default — and criticized by some for still centering the American characters’ experience over the Moroccan characters’ lives
• The Japanese storyline received the most divided reception: some found Chieko’s arc the film’s most formally inventive; others found its connection to the main narrative strained

Box Office Performance / 興行成績

• Worldwide Total: $135.3 million
• Domestic (US/Canada): $34.3 million
• International: $101.0 million
• Production Budget: $25 million
• Return on Investment: 5.4x (strong)
• Opening Weekend (US):
  • Limited release: October 27, 2006
  • Wide release: November 10, 2006
  • Wide opening: $8.7 million (#3)
  • Peak: 1,809 theaters
• Performance Analysis:
  • Golden Globe Best Drama win (January 2007) dramatically extended theatrical life
  • International performance ($101M, 75% of total) reflects the film’s genuinely global subject matter and cast
  • Strong in France, Spain, Mexico, Japan — countries whose cultures appear in the film
  • Japan: Exceptional performance driven by Rinko Kikuchi’s nominations and the Tokyo storyline’s local resonance
  • Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s star power opened the film commercially; the subject matter and awards recognition sustained it
• International Breakdown (estimated):
  • France: ~$18M (Cannes Best Director; French art-house audience)
  • Japan: ~$17M (Kikuchi; Tokyo storyline)
  • Spain/Latin America: ~$15M (Iñárritu; Spanish-language storylines)
  • UK: ~$12M
  • Germany: ~$10M
• The Death Trilogy in Context:
  • Amores Perros (2000): $20.9M worldwide (Mexican production; international breakthrough)
  • 21 Grams (2003): $60.4M worldwide (first English-language; Sean Penn, Naomi Watts)
  • Babel (2006): $135.3M worldwide (global cast; awards peak)
  • Together: a commercial and critical arc that established Iñárritu as one of world cinema’s defining voices of the 2000s

Related Review / 関連レビュー

🔗 English Review
・[International Day to Combat Islamophobia] Humanity Transcending Words and Disconnection Created by Prejudice Epic Drama

🔗 日本語レビュー
・【イスラム嫌悪と闘う国際デー】言葉を超えた人間性と、偏見が生む断絶を描く壮大なドラマ